The concept of kingship as Charles I understood it was challenged by the Covenanters in a struggle of protest over the government of Scotland. Although many aspects of this episode have received historical attention, Charles's own role has not hitherto been investigated in detail. Using a large body of newly available evidence, Dr Donald here attempts to redress the balance, and in doing so offers a substantially new perspective on the Scottish troubles in the crisis years of 1637 41. This study sheds light on the processes whereby Charles, with counsel and yet often in spite of it, tried to...

Criticism and Compliment examines the poems, plays and masques of the three figures who succeeded Ben Jonson as authors of court entertainments in the England of Charles I. The courtly literature of Caroline England has been dismissed by critics and characterised by historians as propaganda for Charles I's absolutism penned by sycophantic hirelings. Kevin Sharpe questions the assumptions on which these evaluations have been based. Challenging the traditional argument for a polarity between court and country cultures in early Stuart England, he re-reads the plays, poems and masques as primary...

This study of the political attitudes of ordinary Londoners during the reign of Charles II examines not only the manifestations of public opinion - for example, riot and demonstration - but also the manner of its formation - religious experience, economic activity, and exposure to mass political propaganda. Professor Harris shows to be misleading the conventional view, that the whigs enjoyed the support of the London masses, and the tories were essentially anti-populist. Both sides had public support during the exclusion crisis, and this division stemmed from fundamental religious tensions...

The law was one of the most potent sources of authority and stability in early modern England. Historians, however, have argued over whether the discretion and flexibility embodied in the judicial system was used as a method of social control, and by focusing their attention on felonies and on the action of the protagonists in judicial decisions they have tended to ignore rich sources of information concerning attitudes towards and experiences of the law. Misdemeanour prosecutions affected many more people (and a broader social variety of participants) than felony prosecutions, and in their...

By analyzing the ideological origins of the Puritan migration to America, the author shows how Puritans believed that their removal to New England fulfilled prophetic apocalyptic and eschatological visions. Based on a close reading of Puritan texts, the book explains how Puritans interpreted their migration as a prophetic revelatory event in the context of a sacred, ecclesiastical history, and why they considered it as the climax of the history of salvation and redemption.

The religious revolution known as the 'Reformation' must rank among the most crucial and transforming events in English history. Yet its original reception by the English people remains largely obscure. Did they welcome the innovations - or did they resist? By what internal motivations were their responses determined? And by what external influences were their attitudes shaped? These are the key issues explored by Robert Whiting in this major investigation, based primarily on original research in the south-west. Dr Whiting's controversial conclusion is that for most of the population the...

The Reformation was, in many ways, an experiment in conversion. English Protestants urged a change from popery to the Gospel, while Catholics persuaded people from heresy and schism to unity. Michael Questier's meticulous study concentrates on the experience of individual converts, but also investigates the political implications of conversion. By discovering how people were exhorted to change religion, how they experienced conversion, and how they faced demands for Protestant conformity, this book develops a fresh view of the English Reformation.

Sir Matthew Hale (1609-76) was the best-known judge of the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell, but he nonetheless rose to be Lord Chief Justice under King Charles II. His constitutional ideas are of interest both to lawyers and to historians of political thought; but he also wrote extensively on scientific and religious questions, in ways that illustrate the birth of early Enlightenment attitudes to both. This book surveys all aspects of Hale's work, and supplies fresh perspectives on revolutionary developments in science and religion, as well as politics.

This book offers a fundamental critique of conventional views of sixteenth-century Irish history that have stressed the centrality of colonization and military confrontation. It argues that reform rather than conquest was the aim of Tudor policy-makers, but shows that the immense difficulties faced by the reformers in pursuing their objectives forced them to make administrative innovations that ultimately contradicted and undermined their original policy.

The concept of kingship as Charles I understood it was challenged by the Covenanters in a struggle of protest over the government of Scotland. Although many aspects of this episode have received historical attention, Charles's own role has not hitherto been investigated in detail. Using a large body of newly available evidence, Dr Donald here attempts to redress the balance, and in doing so offers a substantially new perspective on the Scottish troubles in the crisis years of 1637 41. This study sheds light on the processes whereby Charles, with counsel and yet often in spite of it, tried to...